You do have to worry about coming up with a falsifiable test that can affirm that it was a designer that caused the bacterium to produce human insulin. I'd really like to see such a test, especially one doesn't define the parameters of the designer. Note that failing to find an alternate cause is not proof of a designer in and of itself.
Granted. But the creation of such a test does not require me to trace things back to the beginning of the universe, which was the assertion to which I was originally responding.
I'd really like to see such a test, especially one doesn't define the parameters of the designer.
An interesting comment, given that you're responding to an example where we already know that "design" is the correct answer. Suppose it is impossible to design a scientific test that can produce the correct answer. In that case "science" has nothing whatsoever to say about this debate except "I have no idea whether it's true or not." (Which is definitely not what "science" is saying now.)
However, I think it probably is possible in some cases to design a test that would detect evidence of design. I don't believe that it's always impossible to detect the presence of design, because I know that we can recognize all manner of things that humans design.
Given that, you're reduced to an metaphysical and epistemological argument about whether a non-human would approach design problems the same way humans do. A scientific test would simply dispense with that uncertainty by assuming that non-human design would be recognizeable. It would be bad science to avoid the hypothesis altogether because you a priori assumed that there'd be no point.
Note that failing to find an alternate cause is not proof of a designer in and of itself.
True. But then again, that's not where we'd be with the real-world example of intelligent design I provided. Instead, we'd have two possible causes, and the scientific task would be to choose the better one.